When I met Cate Havstad, she was selling her handmade hats on a wooden boardwalk outside of a saloon at a tiny place in the Sierra Nevada mountain range called Bandit Town. It was not immediately apparent that I was encountering a revolutionary, though she damn well stood out with her beaming smile and Western silhouette of a prairie skirt, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, and long golden hair. A few months later, I visited her hat shop in Sisters, Oregon, which was in a horse stall in the barn in which she lived. She took my head measurements and then built me a custom hat. That was about five years ago.
Since that day, we have driven cross- country with a 32-foot airstream trailer that serves as her hat shop, joined the NODAPL movement at Standing Rock, and harvested potatoes at the farm in Madras, Oregon where she now lives. Having witnessed Cate fully immerse herself in her passions and fearlessly tackle challenges, calling her a hatmaker wouldn’t do her justice. She is so much more.
It was in 2013 that Cate decided to take on hat building after her dog chewed up a hat a friend had gifted her. This curiosity turned into a successful business making custom hats out of beaver-fur felt using equipment dating back to the 1800s, following no trends. Cate constantly strives to perfect and protect her craft. Each year since 2016, she has created limited-edition lines of hats, called Hues of the High Desert, using natural dyes made from plants she harvests around her home. Her hats are heirloom pieces that will endure the test of time—they are so durable they can be salvaged after literally being run over by a truck. She has built hats for country music stars like Kasey Musgraves, Gillian Welch, and Nikki Lane, but also for hardworking ranchers and farmers, environmental conservationists, fly- fishers and hikers, and city folk from Tokyo to New York to Los Angeles. Her clientele is anyone who appreciates the time and effort it takes to make something so valuable and unique.
These days, Cate calls Casad Family Farms home. To balance her hat- making with her farm responsibilities, she has made her work seasonal. She saves the summer for farming, hosts her hat-making workshops in the spring and fall, and takes custom orders during the winter months.
A 35-foot airstream travel trailer serves as Havstad’s mobile hat shop.
Cate and her fiancé, Chris Casad, steward 85 acres of land in Jefferson County using organic, biodynamic, and permaculture principles. Their farm is a mile off two-lane blacktop 120 miles southeast of Portland, where, emerging from the Warm Springs Reservation and the Deschutes River canyon on Highway 26, you climb onto a plateau home to the rural town of Madras, with more than 6,000 residents. Towering in the distance are six volcanic peaks of the Cascade Range. Cate and Chris grow mixed vegetables and root crops for farmers markets, local restaurants, and grocery stores, as well as hays, grains, and specialty seed crops. They also homestead cattle, hogs, and chickens, selling fresh eggs when available. Their “you-pick” flower patch debuts this summer. The guardians of the land are Cate’s rescued mustangs, Duke Silver and Coltrane.
Most biodynamic initiatives seek to embody a triple bottom line: ecological, social, and economic sustainability. With farming principals based in a personal connection to land, biodynamics is not only a holistic agricultural system but also a movement that informs thinking and practices in all aspects of life connected to food and agriculture. A long-term goal of Casad Family Farms is to help build sustainable infrastructure for food security in Jefferson County, which is considered a food desert.
It’s not easy to run a successful business that challenges fast fashion or industrialized agriculture, but that is what makes Cate a revolutionary in my eyes. I’ve witnessed the confidence her customers exude when they put on their perfectly fit hats that flatter them and will also protect them from the elements. I’ve seen her pick wild sage and brew it with iron deposits collected from around the farm to dye felt. When she steamed and shaped this felt into a hat, I smelled the refreshing aroma that filled her workshop. Now, I’ve also watched her grow, from seed, a diversified farm that feeds her region.
When I visit Cate these days, she is usually covered in grime and grease, a term we like to call “ranchy fancy.” When she’s not in her airstream workshop, she might be found wrangling escaped piglets or harvesting vegetables for market. She’s not just building hats nor establishing a farm, but nurturing a community. The farm changes how I feel, how I see myself, and how I see the world. It reminds me of what is inherently valuable. I can hear it in the song of the birds that wake me at sunrise. I can taste it in the sourdough biscuits Cate makes me for breakfast. I can see it in the patina of my well-worn Havstad hat.
The biodynamic farming philosophies employed at the farm of Havstad and her fiancé mirror the rooted philosophies of her hat-making business. All of her endeavors are approached with thoughtfulness and interaction.
Tips of the Trade:
How should someone go about picking the perfect hat?
Try on a variety of hat styles. Identify what you like and what you don’t. If you don’t have access to an array of styles, look at hats on people in magazines, online, or in movies. If you have a round face or a long, narrow face, try to find people with similar features and identify what frames the face in a complementary way. Above all, I recommend talking with the hatmaker building you a hat and rely on their expertise. Most of us have hatted a wide variety of people and can help you identify styles that will suit you.
Tips for hat preservation and care?
Always set your hat upside down—on the crown, not on the brim. Don’t store your hat on the dash of your car or truck! After a good soaking from rain or snow, allow the hat to dry hanging on a hook in a way that the brim is not obstructed. This will allow the hat to dry without warping the brim shape. Also, if your hat is felt, brush it often to avoid buildup, unless you like the patina that comes with layers of life.
For traveling with a hat?
Wear it or store it in a hatbox.
For being an activist or ally?
Listen. Observe. Research. Ask how you can best serve. Take care of your health. You’re no good to anyone if you run yourself into the ground physically or mentally.
For growing food in the high desert of Central Oregon?
Appreciate the seasons and the lessons they are teaching you. Slow down in the winter so you are able to endure the summers. (I’m still learning this myself.) Focus on crops that do well in your microclimate.
What is your favorite plant to grow? And what are tips for growing it?
Potatoes! Hill them often and rotate them, and don’t return to the same plot with that crop for a minimum of five to seven years.
How do you create a work-life balance?
Discipline equals freedom. The older I get, the more I refine my discipline and the more peace I experience.